Friday, July 29, 2011

Breivik's favourite conspiracy

In New Zealand and overseas, many commentators have tried to explain Anders Breivik's rampage on Utoya Island with references to mental illness and anti-Muslim bigotry.

Anybody who kills scores of teenagers in cold blood is by definition mentally abnormal, but Breivik's calm behaviour and relatively coherent writings differentiate him from spaced-out gunmen like Jared Loughner and John Hinckley. And although Breivik is obviously an Islamophobe, his targets were overwhelmingly non-Muslim.

The curious phrases 'cultural Marxism' and 'cultural Marxists' appear again and again in Breivik's writings, but they have received little attention from commentators on the Utoya massacre. This is a pity, because the concept of cultural Marxism is central not only to Breivik's ideology but to a shift in the ideology and propaganda of the far right over the past decade.

For much of the twentieth century, it was common for the fascist and cryptofascist fringe of the right to claim that a conspiracy of communists and Jews was imperilling Western capitalist civilisation. Communism, with its strongholds in the East and its supporters in the trade unions and the universities of the West, was seen as a monolithic, infinitely cunning enemy determined to sabotage and ultimately destroy capitalism by stoking conflict in the workplace and disorder on the streets.

Citing the role of Trotsky and other Jews in the Bolshevik revolution, the far right associated Judaism with communism, and warned that 'disloyal' Jewish bankers and newspaper owners were helping to destroy their 'host' nations in the West. The old anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist ideology sustained not only the Nazis and their 1930s allies like Oswald Mosley, but also postwar fascist organisations like the National Fronts of Britain and France and the paranoid John Birch Society in the United States.

Over the past couple of decades, though, the old conspiracy theory of the far right has needed extensive revision.

Back in the 1970s and '80s, when the far left was relatively strong, the Soviet Union was still seen as a counterweight to the capitalist West, and large, militant trade unions regularly faced down governments in places like Britain and France, fascists could hope to win an audience for claims that 'the reds' were about to bring down capitalism and civilisation. In the 1990s, though, the Soviet Union collapsed and Western trade unions lost vast numbers of members, as the effects of privatisation, deregulation, and other neo-liberal economic policies hit home. Today the claim that militant trade unionists and revolutionary communists pose a mortal threat to Western capitalism would seem fantastic. Capitalism may be in crisis in the West, but this crisis is the work of capitalists, not their enemies.

While claims of a red menace to the economy are untenable in the twenty-first century, conspiracy theories involving Jews are unpopular. Today the slums of London's East End and similar parts of other Western cities are filled not with refugee Jews but with Muslim immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, and it is Muslims rather than Jews who are the main targets of racist attacks. For the far right, Islamophobia does much better business than anti-semitism.

Over the past decade the old conspiracy theory has been reworked, as the far right tries to pitch itself to a new generation. According to contemporary far right demagogues like British National Party leader Nick Griffin and American media entrepeneur Glenn Beck, a shadowy but cunning collection of 'cultural Marxists' has taken control of the schools, universities, courthouses, civil services, and parliaments of the West.

Where the trade union militants and streetfighting students of the 1970s wanted to destroy the economies of the West, today's Marxists want to bring down civilisation by eroding its patriarchal, Christian, and homophobic values. Polemicists like Griffin and Beck and organisations like the British National Party and the English Defence League accuse cultural Marxist teachers of brainwashing their pupils into a hatred of Western culture, and blame abominations like the legalisation of abortion and homosexuality on the cultural Marxist takeover of parliaments.

According to the conspiracy theorists, cultural Marxists have spent recent decades importing vast numbers of 'radical Muslims' into the West. It might seem hard to understand why godless liberals would want to make common cause with religious fundamentalists, but Glenn Beck and his co-thinkers are content to observe that the cultural Marxists and the jihadis have 'a common hatred of Christian civilisation'.

Although the power of trade unions and socialist political parties has declined greatly over the last twenty years, so that the right largely dictates economic policies, many of the cultural campaigns waged by the left in the 1970s and '80s have been successful. Western societies have, on the whole, become more liberal over the past quarter century, as abortion and contraception have become widely available, discrimination based on gender and sexuality has been ameliorated, and more recognition has been given to the history and needs of ethnic and linguistic minorities. These changes have discomforted a minority of conservative Westerners, and led to the series of arguments and legal conflicts that some commentators have dubbed 'the Culture Wars'.

The cultural Marxism conspiracy theory might lack logic and an evidential base, but its great strength, from the point of view of its proponents, is the way it appeals simultaneously to opponents of immigration to the West and to cultural conservatives upset by the successes of feminism and other liberalising forces.

Many commentators have been puzzled by Anders Breivik's decision to target Norway's Labour Party, rather than a predominantly Muslim organisation, but his choice makes sense when it is viewed through the prism of the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. For Breivik and for other supporters of the theory, Muslim immigrants are merely the tools of the Western-born Marxists who supposedly run organisations like the Norwegian Labour Party.

The ferocity of Breivik's attack on Utoya can also be understood with reference to the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. Because of the very reach of the new Marxist conspiracy - because of the fact that it extends far beyond traditional left-wing strongholds like the unions, into the classroom, the media, and virtually every Western government - the menace cannot be defeated by old-fashioned electoral politics or by street protests. The brainwashing of a generation of students by Marxist teachers means that they are incapable of voting for Christian and patriotic candidates; the Marxist control of the media means that any God-fearing citizen who takes to the street in protest will be demeaned and discredited by news channels and papers.

The old parties of the right are uncertain allies against the tide of cultural Marxism. Britain's Tories might have stood up to Scargill and smashed the print unions back in the '80s, but in the era of cultural Marxism they are only too keen to appeal to young working women, gays, and other Satanic constituencies.

In his rambling posts to internet forums Breivik liked to complain that every single organisation represented in Norway's parliament, including even the aggressively anti-immigration Progress Party, had become a 'politically correct' servant of the cultural Marxists. Feeling isolated in the face of a vast and powerful conspiracy, Breivik believed that he had nothing to lose by a spectacularly violent assault on his enemies.

6 Comments:

Anonymous said...

What ya'll fail to understand is that there is a Meta-God. It is He who created all things and also all the Lesser Gods (including the ones the Christians worship).

What happens is that all the Lesser Gods compete to assemble as many followers as possible. This they do in a variety of ways- miracles, suspending rationality of followers, promotion of blind faith as a virtue, wars, natural disasters, torture, sex-traps (also known as the miracle of the honey-trap), conversion, inquisition, disease, ignorance, deception, concept of sin, terrorism, racism, politics, emotional blackmail, theft, prophets, looting, arson, collectivism, prejuduce, churches, ministers, healers, drugs and so on. Whatever They can do to win more followers is AOK by Them. OK by Meta-God as well.

For the Gods there are no rules. They cannot bind each other. Nor can they bind people. The people must choose their preferred Lesser God to follow and believe.

In the end, the Lesser God with the most followers becomes the new Meta-God. Naturally the only way He can win is to make sure that ALL people are followers, His followers. Of course this is a problem for the present Meta-God. He does not wish to be reduced to a lesser status. So it is in His interests to ensure none of the Lesser Gods can ever assemble all people as followers. Hence He promotes conflicts and strife amongst the followers of the Lesser Gods, lest any one of Them become to powerful.

Now you know what happened to Satan. He got busted because he was winning. Now who did the busting? Was it Meta-God or a Lesser God? Too hard to know for sure. The battleground has become too obscured to tell. All the Gods have prophets who have varied and embelished the story for too long now. Still you can get the gist of it fairly easily.

Meanwhile it appears that over the last wee while one of the Lesser Gods hit upon the idea of getting followers to worship the institution of State as a kind of stand-in for a God. That's an interesting ploy, as in the end all the Lesser God need do (if all works as planned) is have a prophet assume the role of Leader. Trouble is that all the Lesser Gods twigged and now there are plenty of different States. There are wars and conflicts and politics a plenty. Still, it'll be interesting to see where all this faith leads.

nice story anon, you've really got a nice narrator voice here and the combination of meta-Gods links nicely back to Scott's reworking of Borges a few months back. I'd continue to tone down the caps from things like They, but you are well on your way.

but the conclusion could use some work... the most ardent nationalists tend to also be from the right and non-secular. The left and centre usually have a healthy scepticism to the State. OK, sometimes it is an unhealthy cynicism, but it sure aint nationalism.

So what we've actually got with nations and Gods is a surplus of belief in some quarters. And belief is supposed to lead to an action. A healthy scepticism is a conservative force and against any radical change - war, for example.

I guess you could use a little cultural Marxism. Just lie back, grit your teeth and think of Grandfather Lenin. It wont hurt a bit.

One way to think about what has happened is this: the revolt against race-replacement has begun… earlier than we expected.

And I’ll tell you something. On the one hand, I don’t support the shooting. But I also know that a future generation of vicious race-replacement enthusiasts, many of them Paki youth, have been put out of commission.

Beowulf said…

Anders Behring Breivik might not be fully awakened—it’s a process for most of us—, but his instincts were dead on. He struck a carefully aimed blow at his enemy, which cannot be done through talking or intellectualizing.

This is primal.

His actions—not rational—were meant to redeem the bloody sacrifices of his people to the multiculturalists. He thought about the problem, felt the impulse to act, and attempted—imperfectly—to construct a rationale and calculate the consequences as best he could.

None of us know what those will be exactly. Such is the nature of action, particularly violent action. But make no mistake: this is a war. It has come because most of the damage has already been done—it’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle.

The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.

I say…

Unless Breivik is emulated by other Europeans, his actions will not have any effect on the West and their elites’ multicult plan. Such actions could even turn to be counterproductive… unless many of us start reading The Brigade.

One way to think about what has happened is this: the revolt against race-replacement has begun… earlier than we expected.

And I’ll tell you something. On the one hand, I don’t support the shooting. But I also know that a future generation of vicious race-replacement enthusiasts, many of them Paki youth, have been put out of commission.

Beowulf said…

Anders Behring Breivik might not be fully awakened—it’s a process for most of us—, but his instincts were dead on. He struck a carefully aimed blow at his enemy, which cannot be done through talking or intellectualizing.

This is primal.

His actions—not rational—were meant to redeem the bloody sacrifices of his people to the multiculturalists. He thought about the problem, felt the impulse to act, and attempted—imperfectly—to construct a rationale and calculate the consequences as best he could.

None of us know what those will be exactly. Such is the nature of action, particularly violent action. But make no mistake: this is a war. It has come because most of the damage has already been done—it’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle.

The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.

I say…

Unless Breivik is emulated by other Europeans, his actions will not have any effect on the West and their elites’ multicult plan. Such actions could even turn to be counterproductive… unless many of us start reading The Brigade.